AMY JOHNSON PIONEERING AVIATOR Amy Johnson was born at 154 St. George’s Road, Hull on 1st July 1903, the daughter of John William Johnson, a member of the old- established family firm of Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company, fish merchants, and Amy Hodge, granddaughter of William Hodge, Mayor of Hull in 1860. The Johnson’s lived on a street associated with the fishing industry; the 1903 Kelly’s directory show St. George’s Road was littered with marine engineers, skippers and fish merchants. Amy was the eldest of four girls, the youngest, Betty, being born sixteen years later. The Johnson family history is an interesting one. Amy’s grandfather (father’s side), Anders Jorgensen, had migrated to this country from the Danish island of Fyn. Her father had a brief spell of prospecting in British Columbia. So perhaps there was a pioneering/adventurous gene passed on through the generations to Amy. On her mother’s side, Amy’s great grandfather, William Hodge, was first sheriff of Hull, then Mayor of Hull in 1860-61 and then an alderman. He was a mill owner who had prospered and made enough money to buy Newington Hall on Anlaby Road. Hodge also had money enough to present Hull Corporation with a full- length marble statue of Edward I. Unfortunately this sort of philanthropic generosity coupled with a poor business sense meant Hodge had to give up his grand house and move to the more modest Coltman Street. When Amy was about 6 years old the family moved to 241 Boulevard. This was to be the first of several moves. Next was 48 Alliance Avenue where they remained for 8 years. Then came 85 Park Avenue until 1931 when the family moved to Bridlington. Each one of these moves represented a step up for the Johnson’s and was evidence of their rising fortune. Until she was twelve, Amy attended various small private schools with only one end-of-term report surviving from the Eversleigh House School at 557 Anlaby Road (near Glencoe Street). However, in 1915 she started at the Boulevard Secondary School, where she stayed until she was almost nineteen. It was around this time that Amy began a six-year relationship with a Swiss businessman, Hans Arregger, who was living in Hull. Amy was 18 years old, Hans was 27 and between 1922- 1928 Amy wrote 286 letters to Hans. Amy had hoped they would marry, but the relationship broke down and Hans married another woman, but he kept Amy’s ©Hull Local Studies Library. All rights reserved. Revised July 2003. 1 letters for the rest of his life (they are now held by the Hull Local Studies Library). Three years at Sheffield University followed, and after receiving her B.A. degree in the summer of 1925, she returned to Hull to undertake a secretarial course at Wood's College, on Spring Bank. Her first job was in an accountant's office in Bowlalley Lane, but she left after three months because of a nervous breakdown. The period following this was particularly important for her future. She almost certainly made her first flight at this time, as a passenger on a five-shilling pleasure trip, in a plane operated by the Surrey Flying Services at the Endike Lane flying ground in November 1926 (a fact which seems significant in view of her later achievements). In the spring of 1926 she wrote to Hans: “… Mollie and I went up in the aeroplane. We both enjoyed it, but I would have liked to have done some stunts.” She also changed her job for a post in Morison's Advertising Agency, which had its offices in one of the Georgian houses in Albion Street (now demolished). This was a move which made her realise that a career in advertising might be a possibility, and encouraged her to consider leaving Hull for London where there would be more opportunities. Emotional problems and disagreements with her parents added to the pressures on her to leave home, and she eventually went to London in early 1927, when she was twenty-three years old. Her first weeks in London were not happy. Unable to obtain an advertising job, she took a position as a trainee salesgirl in the Peter Jones store, a post which in the 1920's had a few prospects. Later, through a family friend, she was introduced to one of the partners in a firm of city solicitors, who offered her a secretarial job which she kept for two years. Had flying not intervened it is probable that she would have been articled to the firm and eventually qualified as a solicitor herself. Aviation as a sport was becoming popular in the late 1920's, and in September 1928, Amy began to take lessons at her own expense, as a member of the London Aeroplane Club, at the de Havilland aerodrome at Stag Lane, near Edgware. After her first six lessons, she wrote home saying: "I have an immense belief in the future of flying", and from then on it became the most important thing in her life. After gaining her pilot's licence, she left her office to work full-time as a mechanic at Stag Lane, to prepare herself for the examination necessary to qualify as a ground engineer, which she passed in December 1929. She was the first woman to receive such a licence from the Air Ministry, and for a time was the only woman in the world in possession of a valid Ground Engineer's licence. This achievement attracted publicity in the popular press, and her decision to fly solo to Australia, to try to break the record set up by the Australian Bert Hinkler in 1928, was announced shortly afterwards. This Australian flight (May 1930), in a Gipsy Moth aircraft named 'Jason', a contraction of the registered trade mark of her father's business, aroused enormous enthusiasm, and the press and newsreel cameras gave her so much publicity that she became one of the world's best-known personalities. Amy failed to beat the record, but was the first woman to fly solo to Australia and in recognition of this was awarded the CBE in the King’s birthday honours list. Other honours followed including gold medals from the Society of Engineers and the Royal Aero Club. ©Hull Local Studies Library. All rights reserved. Revised July 2003. 2 There was great public interest in Amy’s achievement. In 1930 a song, Amy Wonderful Amy was written. In 1931 the first Amy biography, Amy Johnson, Lone Girl Flier, was written by the journalist Charles Dixon. He had first met Amy in connection with her flight to Australia and the book is based on his own impressions of her character and personality. It is rather an idealised view, coming so soon after the 1930 flight, but is interesting because in it he predicts her influence on aviation in general, and on the future of Hull in particular. In his opinion, "We may look forward to Amy Johnson taking at least a prominent part in the development of Hull's municipal aerodrome…It would be typical of that enterprising city under the influence of Major Sir Arthur Atkinson to make Amy the first aerodrome manager in this country". Interest in Amy’s private life was also seen in the press. On 29th July 1932, Amy married fellow aviator Jim Mollison after a whirlwind romance – they had only known each other for a week when Jim proposed. The pair became a celebrity couple and their lives were not entirely their own anymore. However, marriage and celebrity status didn’t stop Amy’s flying achievements. Also in 1932 came another record flight, this time it was the UK – Cape return flight. Amy made the UK to Cape leg taking 10.5 hours off the previous record held by her husband Jim. In 1933 Amy and Jim flew together to achieve a new record of flying from the UK to the USA non-stop in a plane named Seafearer which Jim had adapted by installing huge fuel tanks throughout the plane in order for it to make the journey in one go. The trip nearly ended in disaster when just 55 miles short of their destination the couple ran out of fuel and crash landed with such force that the pair ended up in hospital. However, they had achieved their goal and were rewarded with a typical American style ticker tape parade along the Broadway in New York. Amy never forgot her hometown and in 1932 “The Amy Johnson Cup for Courage” was presented to the City of Hull. The cup was paid for with a purse of sovereigns Amy received from school children in Sydney and was to be awarded each year to a Hull child (under the age of 17) for a deed of courage. In spite of the celebrity and record-breaking achievements, Amy found it almost impossible to earn a regular living as a commercial pilot. Only two jobs had materialised in the 1930s, one for a few weeks in 1934, as a pilot for the daily London to Paris trips of Hillman Airways, the other for nine months in 1939 on the Solent air ferry service. The war gave Amy the opportunity she needed, and she became a pilot in the women's section of the Air Transport Auxiliary, flying machines and men to wherever they were needed. However, it was to cost Amy her life. On Sunday, 5th January, 1941, she was drowned when the plane which she was ferrying crashed into the Thames Estuary during rough weather.